1.
Men have lived who have pleased God: Enoch was one of them, but he
was not the only one. In all ages certain people have been
well pleasing to God, and their walk in life has been such as was his
delight. It should be the purpose of every one of us to please God.
The thing is possible, notwithstanding all our imperfections and
infirmities: let us strive for it in the power of the Holy Spirit.
What has been accomplished in one man may be accomplished in another.
We, too, may be well pleasing to God; therefore let us seek after it
with hopefulness. If we so live as to please the Lord, we shall only
be acting as we ought to act; for we ought to please him who made us
and sustains us in being. He is our God and Lord, and obedience to
him is the highest law of our being. Moreover, the glorious Jehovah
is so perfectly good, so supremely holy, that the conduct which
pleases him must be of the best and noblest kind, and therefore we
should seek after it. Should we not aspire to that character upon
which God himself can smile? The approbation of our fellow men is
pleasant in its way; but they are always imperfect, and often
mistaken; and so we may be well pleasing to them, and yet may be far
removed from righteousness. It may be a calamity to be commended in
error, for it may prevent our becoming really commendable. But God
makes no mistake; the Infinitely Holy knows no imperfection; and if
it is possible for us to be pleasing to him, it should be our one
object to reach that condition. As Enoch, in a darker age, was
pleasing to him, why should not we, upon whom the gospel day has
dawned? May God grant us to find grace in his sight!

2.
If we please God, we shall have achieved the object of our being. It
is written concerning all things, “For his pleasure they are and were
created”; and we miss the purpose of creation if we are not pleasing
to the Lord. To fulfil God’s purpose in our creation is to obtain the
highest joy. If we are pleasing to God, although we shall not escape
trial, for even the highest qualities must be tested, yet we shall
find great peace and special happiness. He is not an unhappy man who
is pleasing to God: God has blessed him, yes, and he shall be
blessed. By pleasing God we shall become the means of good to others:
our example will rebuke and stimulate; our peace will convince and
invite. Being himself well pleasing to God, the godly man will teach
transgressors God’s way, and sinners shall be converted to him. I
therefore, without the slightest hesitancy, set it before you as a
thing to be desired by us all, that we should win this testimony — that
we are pleasing to God.

3.
Here the apostle comes in with a necessary instruction. He asserts
that faith is absolutely necessary, if we would please God. Then,
to help us still further, he mentions two essential points of
faith: “He who comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is
a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.” When I have spoken on
these two points, I shall close, as God shall help me, by showing
that he then teaches us many valuable lessons.

4.I. First, then, THE APOSTLE ASSERTS THAT FAITH IS ABSOLUTELY
ESSENTIAL TO THE PLEASING OF GOD.

5.
Take, as a key-word, the strong word “impossible.” “Without faith
it is impossible to please God.” He does not say it is difficult, or
so necessary that without it success is barely possible; but,
point-blank, he declares it to be “impossible.” When the Holy
Spirit says that a thing is impossible, it is so in a very absolute
sense. Let us not attempt the impossible. To attempt a difficulty
may be laudable, but to rush upon an impossibility is madness. We
must not, therefore, hope to please God by any invention of our own,
however clever, nor by any labour of our own, however ardent; since
infallible inspiration declares that, “without faith it is impossible
to please God.”

6.
We are bound to believe this statement, because we have it in the
sacred volume, stated upon divine authority; but, for your help, I
would invite you to think of a few matters which may show you how
impossible it is to please God without faith in him.

7.
For, first, without faith there is no capacity for communion with
God at all. The things of God are spiritual and invisible: without
faith we cannot recognise such things, but must be dead to them.
Faith is the eye which sees; but without that eye we are blind, and
can have no fellowship with God in those sacred truths which only
faith can perceive. Faith is the hand of the soul, and without it we
have no grasp of eternal things. If I were to mention all the images
by which faith is described, each one would help you to see that you
must have faith in order to know God and have fellowship with him. It
is only by faith that we can recognise God, approach him, speak to
him, hear him, feel his presence, and be delighted with his
perfections. He who does not have faith is towards God as one dead;
and Jehovah is not the God of the dead, but of the living. The
communion of the living God does not go out towards death and
corruption; his fellowship is with those who have spiritual life, a
life akin to his own. Where there is no faith, there has been no
quickening of the Holy Spirit, for faith is of the very essence of
spiritual life; and so the man who has no faith can no more commune
with the living God, and give him pleasure, than can a stick or a
stone, a horse or an ox, commune with the human mind.

8.
Again, without faith the man himself is not pleasing to God. We
read, “Without faith it is impossible to please God”; but the 1881
English Revision has it better: “Without faith it is impossible to be
well pleasing to God.” The way of acceptance described in Scripture
is, first, the man is accepted, and then what that man does is
accepted. It is written: “And he shall purify the sons of Levi, so
that they may offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness.” First,
God is pleased with the person, and then with the gift, or the work.
The unaccepted person offers by necessity an unacceptable
sacrifice. If a man is your enemy, you will not value a present
which he sends you. If you know that he has no confidence in you, but
thinks you are a liar, his praises are lost on you; they are empty,
deceptive things which cannot possibly please you. Oh my hearers, in
your natural state you are so sinful that God cannot look upon you
with any satisfaction! Concerning our race it is written: “The Lord
relented that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his
heart.” Concerning many God has said, “My soul loathed them, and
their soul also abhorred me.” Is this true of us? “You must be born
again,” or you cannot be pleasing to the Lord. You must believe in
Jesus; for only to as many as receive him does he give power to
become the sons of God. When we believe in the Lord Jesus, the Lord
God accepts us for his Beloved’s sake, and in him we are made kings
and priests, and permitted to bring an offering which pleases God. As
the man is, such is his work. The stream is of the nature of the
spring from which it flows. He who is a rebel, outlawed and
proclaimed, cannot gratify his prince by any kind of service; he must
first submit himself to the law. All the actions of rebels are acts
done in rebellion. We must first be reconciled to God, or it is a
mockery to bring an offering to his altar. Reconciliation can only
be accomplished through the death of the Lord Jesus, and if we have
no faith in that way of reconciliation we cannot please God. Faith in
Christ makes a total change in our position towards God — we who were
enemies are reconciled; and from this comes a distinct change in the
nature of all our actions towards God: imperfect though they are,
they spring from a loyal heart, and they are pleasing to God.

9.
Remember, that, in human associations, lack of confidence would
prevent a man’s being well pleasing to another. If a man has no
confidence in you, you can have no pleasure in him. If you had a
child, and he had no trust in his father, no belief in his father’s
kindness, no reliance on his father’s word — it would be most painful,
and it would be quite impossible that you should take any pleasure in
such a child. If you had a servant in your house who always suspected
your every action, and believed in nothing that you said or did, but
put a wrong construction upon everything, it would make the house
very miserable, and you would be well rid of such a character. How can
I take pleasure in a man who associates with me, and pretends to
serve me, but all the while thinks me a sheer impostor, and gives me
no credit for truthfulness? Such a person would be an eyesore to me.
It is clear that lack of confidence would destroy any pleasure which
one man might have in another. When the creature dares to doubt his
Creator, how can the Creator be pleased? When the word which
accomplished creation is not enough for a man to rest on, he may
pretend what he wishes concerning righteousness and obedience, but
the whole affair is rotten to the core, and God can take no pleasure
in it.

10.
Note again: unbelief takes away the common ground upon which God
and man can meet. Two people who are pleasant to each other, must
have certain common views and objects. God’s great object is the
glorification of his Son; and how can we be pleasing to him if we
dishonour that Son? The Father delights in Jesus: the very thought of
him is a pleasure to God. He said, as if to himself only, “This is my
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” He said this, afterwards, to
others, so that they might regard it — “This is my beloved Son; hear
him.” He delights in what his Son has done: he smells a sweet savour
of rest in his glorious sacrifice. If you and I believe in God’s plan
of salvation through Jesus Christ, we have a common basis of sympathy
with God; but if not, we are not in harmony. How can two walk
together unless they are agreed? If we have thoughts of Jesus such as
the Father has, we can live together and work together; but if we are
opposed to him on a point which is as the apple of his eye, we cannot
be well pleasing to him. If Jesus is despised, rejected, doubted, or
even neglected, it is not possible for us to be pleasing to God.
According to the well-worn fable, two people who are totally
different in their pursuits cannot live together in harmony: the
fuller and the charcoal burner were obliged to part; for whatever the
fuller had made white, the collier blackened with his finger. If
differing pursuits divide, much more will differing feelings upon a
vital point. It is Jesus whom Jehovah delights to honour; and if
you will not even trust Jesus with your soul’s salvation, you grieve
the heart of God, and he can have no pleasure in you. Unbelief
deprives the soul of the divinely-appointed meeting-place at the
mercy seat, which is the person of the Lord Jesus, where God and man
unite in one Mediator, and the Lord shines on the suppliant.

11.
Assuredly, again, lack of faith destroys all prospect of love.
Although we may not perhaps see it, there lies at the bottom of all
love a belief in the object loved, concerning its loveliness, its
merit, or its capacity to make us happy. If I do not believe in a
person, I cannot love him. If I cannot trust God, I cannot love him.
If I do not believe that he loves me, I shall feel very slight
emotions of love for him. If I refuse to see anything in the greatest
display of his love, if I do not value the gift of his dear Son, then
I cannot love him. We love him because he first loved us; but if we
will not believe in his love, the motive power is gone. If we reject
the word which says, “God so loved the world, that he gave his
only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish,
but have everlasting life,” then we have eliminated the grand
incentive to love from our hearts. But love on our part is essential
to our pleasing God: how can he be pleased with an unloving heart? Is
not the Lord’s chief demand of men that we love him with all our
heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our
strength? Without faith love is impossible, and God’s pleasure in us
must be impossible.

12.
Again, dear friends, lack of faith will create positive variance
on many points. Note a few. If I trust God, and believe in him, I
shall submit myself to his will; even when it becomes very painful to
me I shall say, “It is the Lord: let him do what seems good to him.”
But if I do not believe that he is God, and that he is intending my
good, then I shall resent his chastisements, and shall kick against
his will. What he wills me to suffer, I shall not be willing to
suffer; but I shall rebel, and murmur, and proudly accuse my Maker of
injustice, or lack of love. I shall be in a rebellious state towards
him, and then he cannot have pleasure in me. “The Lord takes pleasure
in those who fear him, in those who hope in his mercy”; but he will
walk contrary to us, if we walk contrary to him by refusing to bow
ourselves before his hand.

13.
Without faith, moreover, I get to be at variance with God in another
way; for inasmuch as I desire to be saved, I shall seek salvation in
my own way, and go about to establish a righteousness of my own.
Whatever it may be, whether it is by ceremonies, or by good works, or
by feelings, or what not, I shall, in some way or other, set up a way
of salvation other than what God has appointed through Christ Jesus.
God’s love for Christ is supreme, and he will not endure that a rival
should be set up in opposition to him. Another way of salvation is
Antichrist, and this provokes the Lord to jealousy. If you are
labouring to be saved in one way, while God declares that through his
Son is the only way of salvation, you are acting in distinct
opposition to the Lord in a matter which does not tolerate any
compromise. Rejectors of Christ are enemies to God. If you pretend
that you are God’s servants, you are guilty of falsehood if you
refuse to honour his Son by trusting in him. If you believe in
Christ, whom he has sent, you work the work of God; and not
otherwise. Self-righteousness is an insult to Christ, and a
distinct revolt from God. He who has no faith seeks salvation by a
way that is derogatory to the Lord Jesus, and it is impossible for
him to please God.

14.
We must be at variance with God if we are without faith; for it is a
solemn truth that “He who does not believe God has made him a liar;
because he does not believe the record that God gave concerning his
Son.” This is the crime of the unbeliever: it is so stated by the
Holy Spirit speaking by the beloved John. Could you take any pleasure
in a man who thought you to be a liar? Perhaps with great patience
you could bear with him, but you could not be pleased with him: that
would be out of the question. Does a man daily, by the mode of his
life, and by the evident intent of his actions, imply that you are a
liar? — how can he talk about giving you pleasure? Nothing he could do
would please you while he calls you a liar. He who makes God to be a
liar, makes him to be no God; to the best of his ability he undeifies
the Deity; he uncrowns the Lord of all, and even stabs at the heart
of the Eternal. To talk about being well pleasing to God in such a
case is absurd.

15.
Let me conclude this point by asking, by what means can we hope to
please God, apart from faith in him? By keeping all the
commandments? Alas! you have not done so. You have already broken
those commands; and what is more, you still break them, and are in a
chronic state of disobedience. If you do not believe in him you are
not obedient to him; for true obedience commands the understanding as
well as every other power and faculty. We are bound to obey with the
mind by believing, as well as with the hand by acting. The
spiritual part of our being is in revolt against God until we
believe; and, while the very life and glory of our being is in
revolt, how can we please God?

16.
But what will you bring to the Lord to please him? Do you propose to
bribe him with your money? Surely you are not so foolish! Is the Lord
to be bought with a row of almshouses, or a chapel, or a cathedral?
To most of you it would be impossible to try the plan for lack of
means; but if you were wealthy enough to lavish gold out of the bag,
would this please him? The silver and the gold are his, and the
cattle on a thousand hills. If he were hungry, he would not tell you.
What can you give to him to whom all things belong? Truly, you can
assist in an ornate worship, or build a gorgeous church, or embroider
the furniture of an altar, or emblazon the windows of a church. But
are you so weak as to believe that such trifles as these can cause
any delight to the mind of the Infinite? Solomon built him a house,
but “the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands.” To
what shall I compare the most glorious structures of human genius but
to the ant-hills of the tropics, which are wonderful as the
fabrication of ants, even as our cathedrals are marvellous as the
handicraft of men. But what are ant-hills or cathedrals when measured
with the Infinite? What are all our works to the Lord? He who with a
single arch has spanned the world, cares little for our carved
capitals and ornate arches. The prettinesses of architecture are as
much beneath the glory of Jehovah as the dolls and boxes of blocks of
our children would be beneath the dignity of a Solomon. God is not a
man that he should take delight in these things. “Will the Lord be
pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of
oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my
body for the sin of my soul?” It is not this that he asks of you, but
to walk humbly with him, never daring arrogantly to doubt his truth
and doubt his faithfulness. Do not go about by a thousand inventions
to aim at what you will never accomplish, but believe your God, and be
established. So much upon that painful point. Remember the
impossibility of pleasing the Lord without faith, and do not dash
your ship upon this iron-bound coast.

18.
He begins by saying, “He who comes to God must believe that he is.”
Note the key-word “must”: it is an immovable, insatiable
necessity. Before we can walk with God, it is clear that we must
come to God. Naturally, we are at a distance from him, and we
must end that distance by coming to him, or else we cannot walk with
him, nor be pleasing to him. In order that we may come to him, we
must first believe that there is a God to come to. Moreover, we must
not only believe that there is a God — for only a fool doubts that:
“The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’ ” — but we must
believe that Jehovah is God, and God alone. This was Enoch’s faith:
he believed that Jehovah was the living and true God. You are to
believe, and must believe in order to be pleasing with God, that he
is God, that he is the only God, and that there can be no one else
other than he. You must also accept Jehovah as he reveals himself.
You are not to have a God of your own making, nor a God reasoned out,
but a God such as he has been pleased to reveal himself to you.
Believe that Jehovah is, whoever else may or may not be.

19.
But the demons believe and tremble, and yet they are not pleasing to
God, for more is needed. Believe that God is in reference to
yourself; that he has to do with your life, and your ways. Many
believe that there is a hazy, imaginary power which they call God;
but they never think of him as a person, nor do they suspect that he
thinks of them, or that his existence is of any consequence to them
one way or another. Believe that God is as truly as you are;
and let him be real to you. Let the consideration of him enter into
everything that concerns you. Believe that he is approachable by
yourself, and is to be pleased or displeased by you. Believe in him
as you believe in your wife or your child whom you try to please.
Believe in God beyond everything, that “he is” in a sense more sure
than that in which anyone else exists. Believe that he is to be
approached, to be experienced, to be, in fact, the great practical
factor of your life.

20.
Hold this as the primary truth, that God is most influential upon
you; and then believe that it is your business to come to him. But
there is only one way of coming to him, and you must have faith to
use that way. He who died and lives for ever says, “I am the way. No
man comes to the Father, but by me.” He who comes to God must believe
in God as he is revealed, and must come to God as God reveals the way
of approach; and this is an exertion of faith. Faith concerning this
point is essential. You cannot come to him in whom you do not
believe. Are not many hearers of the Word really as far from God as
infidels? Let me ask you, how many atheists are now in this house?
Perhaps not a single one of you would accept the title, and yet, if
you live from Monday morning to Saturday night in the same way as you
would live if there were no God, you are practical atheists; and
since actions speak more loudly than words, you are more atheists
than those doctrinal unbelievers who deny God’s existence with their
mouths, and, after all, are secretly afraid of him. A life without
God is as bad as a creed without God. You cannot come to God unless
you believe in him as the All-in-all, the Lord God besides whom there
is no one else.

21.
Yet all this would be nothing without the second point of belief. We
must believe that “He is the rewarder of those who diligently seek
him.” How do we seek him, then? Well, we seek him, first, when we
begin by prayer, by trusting in Jesus, and by calling upon the sacred
name, to seek salvation. “Whoever shall call upon the name of the
Lord shall be saved.” That is a grand promise, and it teaches how we
come to God; namely, by calling upon his name. Afterwards we seek God
by striving for his glory, by making him the great object for which
we live. One man seeks money, another seeks reputation, another seeks
pleasure; but he who is pleasing to God seeks God as his object and
purpose. “Seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and
all these things shall be added to you.” The man with whom God is
pleased, is pleased with God; he always sets the Lord before him, and
seeks to live for him. He would not do this unless he believed that
God would reward him in so doing. Take this as a certainty, that we
must believe that “God is the rewarder of those who diligently seek
him,” or we shall not seek him. We are sure that, somehow or other,
it will be to our highest benefit to honour the Lord and trust in
him. Albeit we deserve nothing from his hands but wrath, yet we
perceive from the gospel that if we seek him through his Son, we
shall be so well pleasing to him as to get a reward from his hands.
This must be of grace — free, sovereign grace! And what a reward it is!
Free pardon, graciously bestowed; a change of heart, graciously
accomplished; perseverance graciously maintained, comfort graciously
poured in, and privilege graciously awarded. The reward of godliness,
even in this world, is immeasurable, and in the world to come it is
infinite. We may have respect for the reward; indeed, we should
have respect for it, and therefore boldly seek God, and seek nothing
else.

22.
The Lord is “a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.” That is
not quite an exact translation: the Greek word means not only seek
him, but “seek him out”; that is, seek him until they find him, and
seek him above all others. It is a very strong word; we hardly know
how to translate its meaning into English, for though it does not say
“diligently,” it implies it. We must seek, and seek out; that is,
seek until we really find. Those who with their hearts follow after
God, shall not be losers if they believe that he will reward them.
You have to believe God in order to seek his glory. Even when you do
not obtain any present reward for it, you are to say, “I shall have a
reward ultimately, even if I am for a while a loser through his
service. If I lose money, respect, friendship, or even life from
following God, yet still he will be a rewarder, and I shall be repaid
ten thousandfold, not of debt, but according to his grace.” He, then,
who would please God, must first believe that he is; and then,
dedicating himself to God, must be firmly assured that this is the
right, the wise, the prudent thing to do. Be certain that to serve
God is in itself gain: it is wealth to be holy; it is happiness to be
pleasing to God. To us it is life to live for God — to know him, to
adore him, to commune with him, to become like him. It is glory for
us to make him glorious among the sons of men. For us to live is
Christ. This, we are persuaded, is the best pursuit for us; in fact,
it is the only one which can satisfy our hearts. God is our shield,
and our very great reward; and in the teeth of everything that
happens we hold to this, that to serve God is gain. If God helps us
to trust him, and therefore to live for him and seek to be
well pleasing in his sight, we shall succeed in pleasing him. We
cannot conceive that the heavenly Father sees, without pleasure, a
man struggling against sin, battling against evil, enduring sorrow
contentedly through a simple faith, and labouring daily to draw
nearer and nearer to him. God is not displeased with those who, by
faith, live to please him, and are content to take their reward from
his hand. He must be pleased with the work of his own grace. The
desire to come to God, the way to come to God, the power to come to
God, the actual coming to God — these are all gifts of sovereign
grace. Coming to God, however feebly we come, and seeking him,
however much else we miss, must be well pleasing in his sight; for it
is the result of his own purpose and grace which he gave us in Christ
Jesus before the world began. But all this hangs upon faith. Without
faith there is no coming to God who is, and no seeking of God who is
a rewarder; and therefore without faith it is impossible to please
God.

23.III. WE WILL NOW GATHER A FEW LESSONS FROM WHAT THE APOSTLE HAS
TAUGHT US. Help us, oh gracious Spirit!

24.
First, then, the apostle teaches us here by implication that God is
pleased with those who have faith. The negative is often the
plainest way of suggesting the positive. If we are so carefully
warned that without faith it is impossible to please God, we infer
that with faith it is possible to please God. If you believe that he
is, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him; if
you are willing to believe all that he teaches you because he teaches
it, and are really a believer in himself and in all that he is
pleased to reveal, then you are pleasing to him. He who believes in
God believes in all the words that God speaks, and he surrenders
himself to all that God does; and such a man must be pleasing to God.
We believe in one God, and in one Mediator between God and man, the
man Christ Jesus; and we trust in the Lord as he draws near to us
like this: so we are in the way of pleasing God. By faith we
ourselves have become pleasing to God, and our actions performed with
a view to his honour are pleasing to him. What a joy is this! It is
bliss to think that I, who, in my unregenerate state, grieved the
Holy Spirit, and vexed him day by day, am now the object of his
pleasure. I, whose actions were contrary to the law of God, and the
bent of whose mind was against the gospel of Christ, I, even I, who
was once obnoxious to divine anger, an heir of wrath, even as others,
have now, through faith, become to God an object of his satisfaction.
This is very wonderful. If the Holy Spirit leads you to feel the full
sweetness of this truth, you will rejoice with joy unspeakable. I
feel like singing rather than preaching. Oh, guilty one, will you not
now believe your God? This is the way to come back to him. When the
prodigal said, “In my father’s house there is bread enough and to
spare,” he believed in his father’s power to supply all his needs.
When he thought in his heart that his father would receive him, then
he said, “I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him,
‘Father, I have sinned.’ ” You must have so much belief in God as to
believe him to have the heart of a father towards you, or you will
never come back to him; but when you begin to trust your God your
face is already towards the heavenly home, and before long your head
will be in your Father’s bosom. If faith can make the vilest and
guiltiest pleasing to God, will they not believe in him? What a
transformation this would work in them! Oh, that this morning all of
us may stand out in the clear sunlight of Jehovah’s good pleasure,
and know ourselves to be well pleasing to him through Jesus Christ!

25.
Learn, next, that those who have faith make it the great object of
their life to please God. Am I speaking the truth? Will each one
ask whether it is true about himself? Do I, as a believer, live to
please God? We need personal heart-searching on this point. The
believer in the invisible God delights to act as in his sight, and in
secret to serve him. I take a choice pleasure in rendering to my God
a service unknown to others, not done for the sake of my fellows, but
distinctly that I may do something for my Lord himself. It is sweet
to give or do simply to please him, without respect to the public
eye. Even such actions as must come under the gaze of others are not
to be done with the view of winning their approbation, but only to
please God. The doing of such actions is an exceptional fountain of
strength to a man’s mind. It is ennobling to feel that you have only
one Master, and that you live to please him, even God. To please
men is poor work. To live to follow everyone’s whim is slavery. If
you let one man pull you by the ear in his direction, another will
tug at you from another direction, and you will have very long ears
before long. Happy is he who, pleasing God, feels that he has risen
above seeking to please men. It is grand to say, “This is what God
would have me do, and I will do it in happy fellowship with others,
or alone by myself, as the case may be; but I must do it.” This gives
a man backbone, and at the same time removes the selfishness which is
greedy for popular applause. It is a grand thing to be no longer
looking down for cheer, but to be distinctly looking up for it. The
man who truly believes in God makes small account of men. Put them
together, they are vanity; heap them up in their thousands, they are
altogether lighter than vanity. Nations upon nations, what are they
but as grasshoppers! The lands in which they live, what are they
before God! “He takes up the isles as a very little thing.” To please
God even a little is infinitely greater than to have the acclamations
of all our race throughout the centuries. The true believer feels
that God is, and that there is no one else besides him; no one who
needs to be thought of in comparison with him. The theology of the
present aims at the deification of man, but the truth of all time
magnifies God. We shall stand by the old paths, where we hear a
voice which tells us to worship Jehovah, our God, and serve him
alone. He shall be all in all. Only as we see men loved by him can we
live for men; we seek their good in God, and for his glory, and
regard them as capable of being made mirrors to reflect the glory of
the Lord.

26.
Note, next, the apostle teaches us here that those who have faith
in God are always coming to God; for he speaks of the believer as
“He who comes to God.” If you once learn to believe God, and to
please him, you are coming to him day by day. You not only come to
him, and go away from him, as in acts of prayer and praise; but you
are always coming; your life is a march towards him. The way of the
believer is towards God; by his faith he comes ever nearer and yet
nearer to the eternal throne. What is his reward? Why, he who sits on
the throne will say, “Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the
kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Come!
Come on! You have been coming, keep on coming for ever. There is a
gentle, constant, perpetual progress of the believer’s heart and mind
nearer and closer to God. I could not wonder at Enoch being
translated after walking with God for hundreds of years; for it is
such a small step from close communion with God on earth to perfect
communion with God in heaven. A thin partition separates us which a
sigh will remove. The breaking of a blood vessel, the snapping of a
cord, the stopping of the breath, and he who had God with him shall
be with God. Sometimes he could not tell whether he was in the body
or out of the body, but had to leave that question with God; he will
soon be able to answer the question for himself, and know that he is
absent from the body, and present with the Lord. Oh beloved, please
God, please God; and as you please him by your simple confidence and
childlike trust, you are coming nearer to him.

27.
The next lesson is one I have already spoken of: God will see that
those who practise faith in him shall have a reward. I say, God
will see to it, for the text says, “He is a rewarder of those who
diligently seek him.” The Lord will not leave the reward of faith to
the choicest angel: he himself will determine the reward. Here we may
get only a scant reward from those whom we benefit: indeed, they
usually return base ingratitude to us. Joseph was a faithful servant
to Potiphar; but Potiphar put him in prison on a baseless charge.
Joseph helped the butler, and interpreted his dream, yet he did not
remember Joseph, but forgot him. You may not count on due returns
from your fellow men, or you will be disappointed. Like David, you
may guard Nabal’s sheep, and when the sheep-shearing comes you may
hope to be remembered, and he will insult you with a churlish answer.
Expect little from men and much from God, for by nature and by office
he is a rewarder. No work done for him will go unrewarded. In his
service the wages are certain. Rise into the Abrahamic life which
sustains itself upon the Lord’s word, “Do not fear, Abraham: I am
your shield and your very great reward.” It is enough reward to have
such a God to be our God. What if he gives us neither vineyards nor
olive gardens, neither sheep nor oxen; he himself is ours, and this
is a greater reward than if he gave us all the world. God himself is
enough for the believer. If his faith is true and deep, and
intelligent, he cries, “Whom have I in heaven but you? and there is
no one upon earth that I desire besides you.”

28.
The last lesson we gather from it is this: those who have no faith
are in a fearful condition. I do not speak of the heathen, but of
unbelievers who reject the gospel. “Without faith it is impossible to
please God.” Some of you are always making new nets of doubt for your
own entanglement. You invent snares for your own feet, and are greedy
to lay more and more of them. You are mariners who seek the rocks,
soldiers who court the point of the bayonet. It is an unprofitable
business. Practically, morally, mentally, spiritually, doubting is an
evil trade. You are like a smith, wearing out his arm in making
chains with which to bind himself. Doubt is sterile, a desert
without water. Doubt discovers difficulties which it never solves: it
creates hesitancy, despondency, despair. Its progress is the decay of
comfort, the death of peace. “Believe!” is the word which speaks life
into a man but doubt nails down his coffin. If you can believe, oh
guilty one, that Jesus Christ bore the guilt of sin upon the cross,
and by his death has made atonement to the insulted government of
God; if you can so believe in him as to cast yourself just as you are
at his dear feet, you shall be pleasing to God. I entreat you to look
up and see the pierced hands, and feet, and side of the dear
Redeemer, and read eternal mercy there; read full forgiveness there,
and then go away in peace, for you are well pleasing to God. The
sinner who believes God’s testimony concerning his Son has begun to
please him, and is himself well pleasing to the Lord. Oh that you
would now trust him who justifies the ungodly and passes by the
iniquities of sinful men! He will receive you graciously and love you
freely. Oh, come to him, for he is a rewarder of those who diligently
seek him. May God help you to do so at once. But without faith you
cannot please him. Do what you may, feel what you like, you will
labour as in the very fire, and nothing will come of it but eternal
despair. May the Lord help you to believe and live. Amen.

Spirit of the PsalmsPsalm 146(Version 1)1 Praise ye the Lord; my heart shall join
In work so pleasant, so divine;
Now, while the flesh is mine abode,
And when my soul ascends to God.
2 Praise shall employ my noblest powers,
While immortality endures:
My days of praise shall ne’er be past,
Wile life, and thought, and being last.
3 Happy the man whose hopes rely
On Israel’s God: he made the sky,
And earth and seas with all their train;
And none shall find his promise vain.
4 His truth for ever stands secure:
He saves the oppress’d, he feeds the poor;
He sends the labouring conscience peace,
And grants the prisoners sweet release.
5 The Lord hath eyes to give the blind;
The Lord supports the sinking mind;
He helps the stranger in distress,
The widow and the fatherless.
6 He loves his saints; he knows them well;
But turns the wicked down to hell;
Thy God, oh Zion, ever reigns;
Praise him in everlasting strains.
Isaac Watts, 1719.

Psalm 146(Version 2)<8s. 6 lines.>1 I’ll praise my Maker with my breath,
And when my voice is lost in death,
Praise shall employ my nobler powers:
My days of praise shall ne’er be past,
While life and thought and being last,
Or immortality endures.
2 Why should I make a man my trust?
Princes must die and turn to dust! —
Vain is the help of flesh and blood:
Their breath departs, their pomp and power
And thoughts all vanish in an hour,
Nor can they make their promise good.
3 Happy the man whose hopes rely
On Israel’s God: he made the sky,
And earth, and seas, with all their train:
His truth for ever stands secure;
He saves the oppress’d, he feeds the poor,
And none shall find his promise vain.
4 The Lord hath eyes to give the blind;
The Lord supports the sinking mind;
He sends the labouring conscience peace:
He helps the stranger in distress,
The widow and the fatherless,
And grants the prisoners sweet release.
5 He loves his saints, he knows them well,
But turns the wicked down to hell;
Thy God, oh Zion, ever reigns:
Let every tongue, let every age,
In this exalted work engage;
Praise him in everlasting strains.
6 I’ll praise him while he lends me breath,
And when my voice is lost in death,
Praise shall employ my nobler powers:
My days of praise shall ne’er be past,
While life, and thought, and being last,
Or immortality endures.
Isaac Watts, 1719.

The Christian, Peaceful Trust689 — “Trust Ye In The Lord For Ever”<7s.>1 When we cannot see our way,
Let us trust and still obey;
He who bids us forward go,
Cannot fail the way to show.
2 Though enwrapt in gloomy night,
We perceive no ray of light;
Since the Lord himself is here,
‘Tis not meet that we should fear.
3 Night with him is never night,
Where he is, there all is light;
When he calls us, why delay?
They are happy who obey.
4 Be it ours then, while we’re here,
Him to follow without fear;
Where he calls us, there to go;
What he bids us, that to do.
Thomas Kelly, 1815, a.

Gospel, Stated536 — Substitution<7s., 6 lines.>1 Surely Christ thy griefs hath borne,
Weeping soul, no longer mourn;
View him bleeding on the tree,
Pouring out his life for thee:
There thy every sin he bore;
Weeping soul, lament no more.
2 Cast thy guilty soul on him,
Find him mighty to redeem;
At his feet thy burden lay;
Look thy doubts and cares away;
Now by faith the Son embrace;
Plead his promise, trust his grace.
3 Lord, thy arm must be reveal’d
Ere I can by faith be heal’d
Since I scarce can look to thee,
Cast a gracious eye on me!
At thy feet my self I lay;
Shine, oh shine my fears away!
Augustus M. Toplady, 1759.

Spurgeon Sermons

These sermons from Charles Spurgeon are a series that is for reference and not necessarily a position of Answers in Genesis. Spurgeon did not entirely agree with six days of creation and dives into subjects that are beyond the AiG focus (e.g., Calvinism vs. Arminianism, modes of baptism, and so on).